The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer. However, as the number of wireless communication device users continues to increase, the strain on the limited resources in the licensed spectrum also increases.
To provide increased numbers of services to large numbers of users, efficient use of the available radio network resources has become an important consideration. Accordingly, the integration of new network topologies into cellular networks has become an interesting topic to industry planners. In this regard, the study heterogeneous networks (e.g., networks that employ multiple different access mechanisms such as macro base stations, micro base stations, pico base stations, femto base stations, relays and other devices employing perhaps the same spectrum e.g. within a long term evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network) has become an important topic in relation to enabling heterogeneous local communication directly between devices and/or machines under the supervision of the network.
Autonomous D2D communication (e.g., communication between devices within range of an access point such as an enhanced node B (eNB) of an LTE (or LTE-A) network) has been one aspect of heterogeneous local communication that provides some potential with respect to providing better resource management. However, D2D communication using, for example, network uplink resources without eNB involvement may result in interference problems with other devices attempting to utilize the same spectrum. Accordingly, it may be desirable to develop mechanisms for finding alternate ways to provide service to potentially large numbers of users in an environment with resources that may be limited.